38 Responses

The lady’s comment just shows that Western religions can be as thin skinned as the Eastern religion that has recently gotten their shorts in a bunch over a silly cartoon. I would be more offended by all the people who have killed and been killed in the name of her silly god than I would over a cartoon that makes fun of one of the most popular Hispanic names and is proudly held by some of the better and some of the worst individuals in that community. Doesn’t seem to bother them and it doesn’t bother me.

Anytime an entertainer steps outside the box and tries to do something a little edgy, people get upset. Speaking personally, I’m an atheist. And if I wasn’t an atheist, I’d be Jewish (I was raised in a marginally Jewish household), so I freely admit that this set of strips didn’t bother me either way. However, I would like to point out to the person who complained in the first place that Adams isn’t making fun of Jesus Christ. He’s got a Hispanic guy who’s *name* is Jesus and who (as a result of the name) has godlike powers. The joke is that it’s his name that gives him his abilities. Get it?

I don’t think this reader should ever see Monty Python’s “The Life of Brian.” Just a suggestion.

iknowtruthismine: Is it really necessary to insult millions of Catholics who observe Easter by labelling them ‘cultists’ in response to a silly cartoon that was not meant to harm anyone? Where’s the ‘truth’ in that?

Edward Szemkow – Why would you assume that I singled out Catholics when mentioning Jesus Cultism? Aren’t all so called Christian churches subsections of Jesus Cultism? Why do Catholics think that everything revolves around them? Aren’t all Jesus Cults worthy of enmity and derision?

Did you hear how unhinged she was? I haven’t heard a rant like that since Angry German Kid. Thankfully, you were able to capture that anger and post it here for our amusement; the very first post of it’s kind on this blog.

“My favorite rhetorical question, which I received an alarming number of times, was ‘Why don’t you mock Mohammad next? Huh? Why not?’ Well, aside from the blindingly obvious reason that I prefer life over death, I didn’t realize I was making fun of Christianity this week….”

Well, at least Adams admits he picks his targets based on their ability to “fight back.”

Unlike many of the people who’re reacting in a pro-Dilbert way here, I am religious. On the other hand, I’m Jewish, but still, I’m not a person who would call someone’s god/God/G-d “silly” unless I knew the person and knew s/he wasn’t likely to take offense. I’ve been amused by the Hay-soos arc in Dilbert lately, but one isn’t my favorite. I like the new Wally who now has a full head of hair.

Anyway, I try not to mock other people’s beliefs in the miraculous or spiritual, but I’m a big proponent of senses of humor.

gunga dan – Why would you assume that I’m singling out Christianity when I comment against religion? Having followed what I have to say in other blogs, you must be aware that I am an equal opportunity discriminator when it comes to pointing out the negative effects that the childlike devotion to institutions that have killed more people throughout history than any other institutions. Religion is a disease that must be confronted wherever it raises it’s delusional head, which I believe happened when the person on the tape made her silly comment. Attitudes like hers will not be changed until we as a society evolve beyond the need to give meaning to our lives through superstitious institutions that have the end of humanity as their ultimate and sought after goal.

“Attitudes like hers will not be changed until we as a society evolve beyond the need to give meaning to our lives through superstitious institutions that have the end of humanity as their ultimate and sought after goal.”

It’s my experience that hard core athienists like you are also misanthropes, which makes them undesirable breeding parters. I would have said husband/wife, but those are religious and we can’t have that, can we.

“Having followed what I have to say in other blogs”

Believe me (oops, sorry!), there is nothing about what you say that I would follow.

For everyone else (don’t tell IKTIM) but I found it kind of funny – not his best work – but this particular strip has a lot of truth to it.

gunga dan – I know how hard it is for people with a Neanderthal mentality to function in a complex world after watching my father crumble into a mass of cliches and jingo-patriotic mumblings because he lacked the intellectual tools to grasp that his “Tom Mix”, Joe McCarthy based reality lacked any rational connection to the real world. I have deep and real empathy for the plight you also seem to be laboring under and would hope that you, like my hope for silverbrunogate2008, make every attempt to get the counseling you so obviously need. The left is not going to be silenced, which I believe is your actual goal, by Rush Limbaugh mentality wannabes spouting a stream of distortion, hate and emotional talking points, engineered to make the word “Liberal” sound like a festering venereal disease. You might as well give up, we won’t allow you to silence us this time around.

…jingo-patriotic mumblings…?
…Joe McCarthy based reality…?
…Rush Limbaugh mentality…?
I thought this was blog about a comic strip. And aren’t they really about making people laugh? What’s w/ the Neanderthal mentality crap?

I will let your lack of meaningful content comment, stand on it’s own spindly legs, with only one clarifying correction. All religion is valueless, not just Christianity. A head shrinking aborigine’s worship of thrown sticks is every bit as vacuous as your chosen delusion.

WOW – IKTIM has got to be one of the most hate-filled posters I have ever come across! I am just grateful that I am not going through life looking at it through those glasses! Life is great – let each other be – be kinder than necessary, for everyone is fighting some kind of battle. Now I am bracing myself for more vitriol…

Christine V -Your attempt to paint the defense of rational thought as an expression of hate, is part and parcel of the effort instilled in our society to shun or shame the voices of reason when they challenge that society’s deeply held misconceptions. Is it necessary to challenge these beliefs and bigotries associated with them? I would have to say yes, considering how much suffering and death has, and still, is being caused by the perpetuation of such institutions. That so many of them are having contests to out-breed each other, much to the detriment of an already over crowded planet, and because the stated and seemingly much anticipated goal of most of them is the end of the world, I find little reason to sit back and let such a horrible rape of Humanity unfold without at least trying to reach out and stop it. That people can blithely careen into an ever more complicated future armed with social tools that would have been better off left in the Middle Ages, is the true sadness of the Human condition and perhaps our ultimate demise as a species.

Christine V. – If you are of the opinion that the status quo is all we need to deal with the complex problems facing humanity, I suggest you just do what intellectually vacuous people have always done, just shut down your mind and pretend the world is a warm fuzzy place. Why do I insist on exposing you to ideas that contradict your deeply held misconceptions? Somebody has too. The ability to think also carries with it the inevitability that conclusions will be the reached, that these conclusions are often contrary to accepted myth, are only a measure of the power and flexibility of rational thought and the necessity to examine, from time to time, our constructed histories, so that we can avoid becoming repositories of accumulated rubbish.

gunga dunce – As a deeply committed, practicing, devout, evangelical non-theist, I have disdain for ALL religions because ALL religions are based on the idea of some form of god creature, for which there has NEVER been one tiny shred of evidence that it, or they, exist or have EVER existed. That you seem to translate that into hatred of your chosen delusion is not inclusive enough to include ALL the other religions that have no value either. ALL gods are false and if you can’t live with the fact that your god might be included in that silly group, is no fault of mine. Produce your silly god, and I will be the first to bow before it, but short of that event occurring, you may place it where the sun don’t shine.

Carrying on a dialog with gunga dunce is like playing chess with a pigeon, they knock over all the pieces, crap on the board and fly home to their flock to declare victory. There is no way that one could stoop low enough to reach a baseline that could be used for exchange of ideas, because he seems to be a bird-brain.

IKTIM, wonder what would happen if you couldn’t hide behind the anonymity of your pseudonym. BTW, you never answered my question in #19 – it was just more of you spewing empty words without anything concrete to back up your thoughts……

Christine V – A careful rereading of my response (#20) to your “Why do you hate puppies” type comment (#19), should convince you that I took great care to point out the need by everyone, capable of rational discourse, to address the the condition of our society, our perceptions of reality and the ethical standards we need mindful of and adjust, as our society becomes ever more complicated in a world that is also becoming more complicated and dangerous. It is evident that you took my first suggestion in that comment, but you were unable to completely block out your seeming animosity toward people who actually think. By the way, multi-syllabic words are not “empty” if you have the capacity to understand them.

Christine V – You are starting to remind me of a fly that continues to annoy you despite several attempts to shoo the mindless creature away. Finally, one is ultimately forced to swat the pest. Don’t make me have to do that to you. It is not my fault that you are so shallow.